“It was my choice,” he retorted, his cold hand now slid to her neck.
She brought her hands to his chest. She still searched for his heartbeat, but he clutched her wrist.
“I can fix this, Cedric,” she assured. “Just give me some time.”
He shook his head in disagreement. “This one, I don’t think you can fix.” He paused for a solemn moment. “Whatever this is, whatever I’m feeling, I can’t explain.” He looked deeper into her eyes, almost reaching her soul. “I am calm and serene, but a thousand voices are screaming in my head. They’re clawing through the walls of my mind, and I don’t know how long I can hold them back.”
Ahna remained silent. A tear ran along her cheek, which Cedric immediately removed.
“There’s a darkness, Ahna,” he pursued. “And when I look at you, it makes me want to suck the life out of your tempting lips.” He looked away for a second as he said these words. “But right now, Ahna, I can control the urge...” He pulled her face closer to him, and his cold lips locked with hers in a soft and tender kiss. He inhaled deeply as it took him all his willpower to pull himself back.
He pushed her back carefully, to protect her from what he had become.
“Where will you go?” Ahna finally asked, trembling.
Cedric looked to the mountain behind her and behind the rebels, above the valley of Orgna.
“Somewhere far from here,” he declared. “Somewhere as far from the city as possible.”
He then looked over Ahna at Commander Falco, who stared at him in fearful awe. His eyes met Kairen’s, Diego’s, and Lynn’s, and finally, Jules’. He nodded to the people who had once been his brothers and sisters in arms. He smiled at his lieutenant.
“You take care of them for me, handsome!” he called.
Jules did not know what to say.
Cedric then looked at Thamias. He gave him a simple nod, perhaps as a recognition of the battle of titans they had fought. The young dokkalfar just stared back at him with dismay.
The captain of the Shrike Wing, no longer the same, eventually looked back to David and greeted him with a military salute.
“To your victory, Commander.”
Cedric then took a few steps back. He gazed into Ahna’s purple gemstones one more time and cherished the moment for a little while.
The marksman then looked into the sky, and the skin of his face began to crackle into dust. His body was covered with a dark veil of shadows to which he succumbed entirely. The gloom ashes of his faded body then merged into the majestic horror of a black scaleless dragon. The beast soared into the sky and ascended toward the high mountains of Gurdal. Ahna looked back and fixed the void dragon until he was no longer in sight. Her eyes then laid over Kairen and David and her dear friends. She smiled at them, with regretful grief, but also with the light of a new victory. Commander David Falco and Captain Kairen Aquil smiled back.
Later, after a long rest above the valley near a little brook, those who could still travel would make their way back to Fort Gal, to alert the rest of the Resistance that the fight had been won. The elders and children, civilians and other refugees, would then march down the mountain to rejoin the brave rebel warriors.
The band of heroes walked the Bravan fields together with the people of an entire movement. They were exhausted from the final fight, and all were scarred by the many years of rebellion. But as they marched with pride, with the triumphant endurance of a new dawn, they made their way to the capital. The time called for a new age. An era of freedom. A revolution to be engraved in the history of Bravoure until the end of time.
1363:AV, Anno Varkadia, the Resistance has won.
After the Final Battle the spring before, the rebels seized the city. They threw Lord Sharr’s body on the footsteps of Bravoure’s central plaza. The few dokkalfar guards left to patrol the capital surrendered when the rebels rallied the freed people.
A full moon later, Mother Divine was appointed as interim leader of Bravoure. Her task was to restore the order, help rebuild the city, and heal the spirit of its humble citizens.
After her duty, Bravoure would set out to adopt a new administration: a democracy. No more kings and queens. No more castes, no more nobility, and no more aristocracy that divided Bravoure in the past. No more discrimination based on difference, but a regime that unites people as one.
The scorched Magi Academy of Bravoure was restored by Archmage Meriel Ahn Arkamai, whom most referred to only as Ahna. She rebuilt the Academy together with the people. She sought to absolve the magi who had joined the Dark Lord and give them a second chance.
The Congregation, home of the Five Orders of Light, was in the hands of five different clerics from each order, who became known as the Red Cardinals, for their long scarlet alb embroidered with gold.
The dokkalfar civilians in the city were given a chance to return to the Dwellunder, or to accept Bravoure’s revolution. Most retreated, but the prosperous south-west was taken as an example to rebuild the rest of the city.
Trade with the neighboring land of Galies recommenced, and with a bit of their benevolent help, the capital became the city of gold it had once been again. Devoted artisans who had lived oppressed for so long even volunteered to help rebuild the mines of Orgna! Nature by the mines quickly reconquered the valley floor and the grass was now greener than it had ever been.
For now, the throne of Bravoure remained untouched, until the elections of a new leader.
Ahna sat by the window of her temporary quarters in the Bravan castle. She had a view on the stables in the courtyard, on Bark, her jolly brown horse who munched on some hay. The sun was setting, and its golden light shone over the plains in the distance.
After the Resistance’s victory, she had gone to Miggdra, to a family of locals she knew. She had gifted them her little stone house, which they now used as an extension to their farm. Her new home was here, in Bravoure city, alongside her brother and her sister and friend Kairen.
As she pondered on the Magi Academy’s possible futures, she heard a knock on her door. When she invited the visitor to enter, Thamias stepped into her room.
“Kyær’ natta, dear brother!” she greeted him as she hugged him.
He told her of his day as they sat together by the window ledge. They talked, they laughed together, they remembered their mother. She disclosed some of her plans for the Academy, and how she would go on a quest to search for more magi. Some must still be out there! As she spoke of her plans, Thamias remembered something from the distant past.
“Meriel, I had to tell you something before...” he hesitated. “Before Xandor captured me.” Ahna, intrigued by what Thamias had just said, leaned closer to him. She searched his amber eyes for a hint of the story he wanted to tell. “It’s about Luthan.” Ahna’s heart stopped, and she rounded her eyes. She motioned for Thamias to continue. “I was supposed to tell you, but I never made it back to you. I’m so sorry!”
Thamias’ distress was hushed by Ahna’s gentle caress. “Thamias, just tell me.”
“Luthan may be alive, Meriel.”
Ahna gasped. How could this be...
Thamias proceeded to explain. “Before the cleansing order, the Dean ordered Luthan to take as many magi as he could to Antaris.”
“Antaris? That city was destroyed by Xandor. There’s nothing left, only ruins. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Thamias shook his head. He pursed his lips to think. “Luthan was going to take you with him. He searched for you. Everywhere. But you were gone, so he told me.” Ahna turned to the nothingness and stared silently. “When I found out Xandor had captured you, it was too late.”
“What were you supposed to tell me?” Ahna inquired.
“Luthan wanted you to meet him outside the city,” her brother replied. “So you’d go to Antaris together. I’m not sure what he meant to do, but he said something...”
“Something what?” Ahna urgently interrupted.
“Something about...making the city disap
pear?”
Ahna gasped again.
For the past fifty years, she believed the man of her life to be dead. She was sure he had been killed by Xandor himself during the cleansing of magi. Now, after what Thamias had just said, her whole history took a different turn.
She thanked Thamias for his revelation. When her brother left the room, she stared outside the window, at the moon that looked upon her in the dark of the night. Despite the peace and quiet that finally rested over the city, her heart raced. She had no idea what she would do next, but she was sure of one thing. She needed to find Luthan, and she would certainly start at the ruins of Antaris.
Far beyond the Bravan fields and valleys, above the lowlands and deep into the high mountains of Gurdal, there was an ancient temple destined to welcome dragonborns. They say the four winds of Bravoure hummed and sang between the columns, and at night, the altar’s Draconis words were lit by the shimmer of the stars.
By the ledge, close to the temple, over the cliff facing north, stood a dark, cold figure of Death herself. He was quiet, still, almost as silent as the ice that surrounded him. The flesh of his face had begun to decay, yet he felt no pain. The rotting of the meat around his arms had been forestalled. It had transformed into rigid tissue, unchanged by time that had passed in Gurdal. Only his pale dead eyes remained alive in their hollow orbit.
Behind him, he suddenly heard the ambling footsteps of a lost soul, or more of a lost vessel. He turned to face a dead figure of a decomposing corpse that strolled toward him. Behind the horror, a dozen more walked the path to the Temple of the Four Winds. Some wore armor, some bore swords, and some, despite their ability to crawl, missed some of their limbs. They groaned silently as they made their way at his feet.
To his pleasant surprise, he felt no fear. Actually, he felt little to nothing anymore. When a pack of more dozens of these wanderers amassed, to their knees, before him, Cedric gazed upon them as a master would his disciples. The smell could have been unbearable, yet he was unmoved. As he turned back to the northern mounts, the void dragon spread his torn wings wide, and his army of the dead walking screeched in contagious awe.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank some precious people who were part of this wonderful journey:
My dear friend Yuliya, who not only was my first reader, but also my logic-check, my plot hole finder, and most of all, who read and reread my story multiple times and stayed all the way from Day One until the end.
My mind-twin Janina, who dreamed with me of stories, and who inspired and motivated me to finally start writing.
Vincent, who read me my story before going to bed.
Chantal, my business partner in cybercrime, who decided to take on the task of supporting my writing aspirations.
My editor Elizabeth Hess. It was an interesting ride, but we did it, and I learned so much!
My Dungeons and Dragons party, the Murder Hobos, with whom I could share adventures like but not quite as crucial as Ahna and the Resistance.
Bipin, my favourite storyteller, who even with a ton of work on his hands, took some time to support me and my writing.
Shen and Elise, who bought me a typewriter for my birthday because "I cannot be a writer without a typewriter."
Chaïma, who has known me since I first wanted to write this book.
And finally, all RPG game designers out there, power and symphonic metal bands, artists like Audiomachine, Thomas Bergersen, Les Friction, Immediate, Hidden Citizens, and more, whose creations and music carried me to different worlds where my imagination could rise to its full potential.
About the Author
Valena is a computer scientist from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, but programming is not her only passion. She started writing short stories at a young age, first in French, then she quickly switched to English in her teenage years. Her dream has always been to publish an epic fantasy novel, so she kicked off with Kingdom Ascent, the first book of the Tempest of Bravoure series. By doing so, she fulfils the promise she made to her child-self. As an avid gamer, Dungeon and Dragons player, Star Trek/Wars/Gate fan, and metalhead, she has had all the sources she needed to invent alternate realms that derive from all we know about life, the universe, and everything.
Tempest of Bravoure: Kingdom Ascent Page 25